September 14, 1939

A Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, Poland, after the Germans bombed the city

The Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Within a few days the Polish government fled Warsaw, and on September 28, the capital surrendered to the Nazis. A quarter of the houses in Warsaw had been destroyed and an estimated 50,000 people killed or wounded. Jews immediately became a target of abuse: Jewish homes and stores were pillaged, Jews were thrown out of food lines, seized for forced labor and generally tormented.

This picture was taken by Eric Colcraft, a photographer with the English newspaper Planet News. Mr. Colcraft, who was wounded while taking pictures during an air raid, said that he could “set his watch by the regularity of the German planes passing over Warsaw on their work of destruction”. More about Warsaw…